CTIA Statement After Testifying Before the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology

After testifying on “Promoting Broadband, Jobs and Economic Growth through Commercial Spectrum Auctions” before the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, I issued the following statement:

“As I stated in my testimony this afternoon, there are a number of benefits that auctioning more spectrum for the U.S. wireless industry would provide for America and Americans. This includes billions of dollars in revenue for the U.S. Treasury and increasing access to wireless Internet for millions of consumers across the country. In addition, some economists have stated that the wireless industry’s investment in next generation wireless technologies could create as many as 200,000 jobs, which doesn’t include positions in adjacent fields that increasingly rely on wireless technology such as healthcare, energy, education and transportation.

“With only certain bands of spectrum that work best for wireless products and services, we must ensure that this finite resource is being used to its highest and best use. With more than 120 MHz of unused or underused spectrum by broadcasters, we have proposed compensating those who participate in incentive auctions, share channels or adopt a cellularized architecture while preserving over-the-air broadcasting.

“Spectrum is vital to our industry. It is what fuels the ‘virtuous cycle’ of innovation and competition, which is why we are seeing tremendous consumer usage and demand for wireless Internet anytime and anywhere. Cisco’s Visual Networking Index has projected that wireless data traffic in North America will grow 20 times from 2010 to 2015, on top of the 110 percent growth we experienced in 2009-2010. The U.S. is the world’s wireless industry leader. Yet we are at a pivotal moment because other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Korea and Japan have already allocated additional spectrum because they recognize mobile broadband as a key economic driver.

“We appreciate the support of the President, many members of Congress, the FCC Chairman and Commissioners, and other policymakers to make more spectrum available for the U.S. wireless industry so we can remain the world’s leader.”